The development of an instrument to measure two constructs of mathematics teachers' attitudes toward teaching statistical concepts

The Teachers' Attitude Toward Statistics and Probability (TATSP) scale was developed to measure secondary mathematics teachers' attitudes toward teaching statistical topics in the regular high school curriculum. The scale was based on Fishbein's theory of reasoned. The relationship between a teacher's beliefs about teaching statistics, attitudes about teaching statistics, and behaviors involving teaching statistics were consistent with Fishbein's model. The 24-item TATSP scale consists of two subscales to measure teachers' perceived importance of and liking of teaching statistical topics.

A 43-item pilot TATSP scale was constructed to solicit evaluative beliefs about either the importance or liking of teaching statistical topics, and tested with 32 high school mathematics. The scale was reduced to 24-items and tested with 58 teachers from 11 public high schools.

The TATSP scale was reliable and valid. The internal consistency estimate was 0.92 for the scale and 0.85 and 0.94 for the importance and liking subscales, respectively. Test-retest correlations were all satisfactory.

Construct and criterion-related validity were established. Correlation of total scale score with self-reported coverage of statistical topics was 0.55. About 72 percent of the teachers were correctly classified as members of the low or high coverage group using scale scores.

It was concluded that teachers who like statistics cover more statistical topics in their classrooms. Also, high school mathematics teachers who are knowledgeable of statistics cover more topics in their mathematics classes. Teachers who graduated from college recently had completed more statistics courses than their more experienced counterparts.